Suryakumar Yadav equals Virat Kohli’s world record in nearly half the time as India hammer Afghanistan

Very few can replicate Suryakumar Yadav’s brilliance in T20Is. On a surface that made life difficult for two of the greatest white-ball players, Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli, runs from Suryakumar’s bat flowed like water from an open tap. As he does so often, he got into good positions, found the empty spaces in the field and kept hitting the boundaries in the middle overs in India’s T20 World Cup Super Eight opener against Afghanistan in Barbados.

It was mainly due to his brilliant display with the bat that India were able to post an above-par total on a surface that hardly allowed batters to hit through the line. Suryakumar hit three sixes and five fours in his 53-run knock of just 28 balls to power India to 181/7 after opting to bat.

Coming in to bat at No.4 when India were 54/2 in 7 overs, Surya showed attacking intent to wrestle the initiative in India’s favour in the middle overs. He got to his half-century off 27 balls with a boundary off Fazhalhaq Farooqi before getting out in the next delivery.

Surya’s partnership of 70 runs with vice-captain Hardik Pandya (32 off 24) was the turning point in the game.

The right-hander was adjudged Player of the Match for his batting display. It was his 15th Player of the Match award in T20Is – the joint-most by any cricketer in this format. Surya equalled Virat Kohli’s world record. But to put his brilliance into context, Surya took just 64 matches to claim 15 POTM awards, averaging an award every fourth match. Kohli, on the other hand, required 113 matches to get to 15 POTM awards.

Most POTM awards in T20Is

15 Suryakumar Yadav

15 Virat Kohli

14 Virandeep Singh

14 Sikandar Raza

14 Mohd Nabi

This was also the first instance an Indian batter got the Player of the Match award in this World Cup. “I don’t mind giving this Player of the Match to a bowler. First time it’s going to a batter (from India in this tournament), I don’t mind,” Surya told the broadcasters after India won the match by 47 runs.

Ever since making his debut 2021, Suryakumar has been an absolute beast in the shortest format of the game. He has scored 2253 runs in 61 innings at an average of 45.06 at a strike rate of 168.51, which is second to none. He has been occupying the top spot in the ICC T20I ranking for batters for more than a year now.

On Thursday, Surya used the sweep shot to good effect, especially against Rashid Khan. “I think there’s a lot of hardwork, there are a lot of processes and routine involved in it. I am clear in my mind what I want to do. I think you just need to know your game plan, and just play accordingly. I still remember when Hardik came in to the bat, I told him let’s bat with the same intent. Let’s keep pressing the pedal and keep pushing, in the end very happy with a score of 180,” Surya said.